Yesenia Rojas, an SEIU-USWW organizer from Anna Drive who has become a de facto media spokesperson for that neighborhood and an active supporter of by-district council elections, as arrested this morning by Anaheim police. According to posts by her network of supporters and friends on Facebook, Rojas was brought in on an outstanding warrant for either interfering with the justice of the police, i.e. obstruction of justice.
Rojas was released on $10,000 bail at approximately 11:00 p.m.; the OC Labor Federation reportedly assisted with posting the bail.
Council candidate and anti-police activist Donna Acevedo led the social media rally to get Rojas released. On Acevedo’s Facebook page, another anti-police activist, Zia Back, advised:
“Converge at the station. They will freak out and let her go.”
Clearly, they have their community organizing/political pressure tactics down pat.
Cynthia Ward chimed in Acevedo’s Facebook page with some paranoid advice, with the latter responding appropriately to Ward’s hyperventilating:
Rojas posted this comment on Acevedo’s Facebook page early this morning:
In a story posted this morning on OC Weekly’s blog, Gabriel San Roman reports that according to Rojas, she called APD Deputy Chief Jim Harvey to invite him to some neighborhood events, whereupon Harvey informed her there was a warrant for her arrest:
Rojas walked into the Anaheim Police Department headquarters that afternoon to turn herself in at Harvey’s suggestion. After meeting with him, she was booked and held on $10,000 bail for charges of interfering with police before being released late into the night.
The police are mum about the details, but back on September 6, neighbors and family in Anna Drive held a surprise party for Rojas’ 37th birthday. Just before 10 p.m., Rojas had just invited her neighbor Donna Acevedo, a city council candidate who’s is the mother of someone killed by the Anaheim PD, to come to the fiesta when a mother came screaming for help.
In a nearby alley, Anaheim police were arresting the mother’s son. Residents quickly rushed to the scene, whipped out their smartphones and began filming. Footage seen by the Weekly shows gang unit officers standing stoically in the alley keeping people away from the scene.
Rojas walked with her hands up, Ferguson-style, berating police to respond; she claims a cop grabbed her arm and pulled it down. The activist tried clearing a pat through the crowd as officers carried a handcuffed man to the street and into the backseat of a gang unit patrol car.”Why are you taking him?” residents can be heard screaming. “Let him go!”
“We were trying to get names, badge numbers, and they didn’t even answer,” Rojas says.
Anaheim police told the Weekly that two arrests occurred that night. Eriberto Castro, 20, was taken in for violating the gang injunction in effect around Anna Drive. Police booked Esgardo Villa, also 20, for drug possession and resisting arrest.
Police units eventually left the alley to angry residents telling cops to get out of their neighborhood. “I don’t see any changes,” Rojas said, about whether relations have improved between the police and Anna Drive residents. “It’s the same.”
San Roman whole post can be read here.
Imagine to gumption of the police arresting a gang member for violating a gang injunction, or enforcing drug laws. When will that change?
Yesenia Rojas was doing well and I sincerely had hoped she would continue to focus on immigrant issues and help disband what is left of the criminal Eastside street-gang on Anna Drive. But she seems to be doing everything she can to get deported.
Yeseina is a US citizen, you freak. We may as well deport YOU.
Then she should start acting like it. Why instead of bashing the cops don’t they fight the crime on Anna drive. Let’s start with the Welfare fraud. Did you know it’s common practice for gang members
To force girlfriends and wives and MOTHERS to use EBT, WIC and other monies to buy and resell food in the courtyards?
These people are criminals.
. . . That this comment ever saw the light of day is reprehensible.
Maybe I’ll make you the comment moderator since you seem to be glued to your computer, monitoring this blog and seeing the comments before I do.
That said, Judge Righteous, I deleted the personal attacks as soon as I saw them.
I just checked out Rojas’ FB account and it’s sad that three of her friends who commented on her page the last few weeks are candidates running for local elected offices.
On her FB posts just this month she wrote,”Pigs” referencing Anaheim Police for today’s arrest explanation and wrote “F___king police” earlier this month when apparently a neighbor called the police for some party she was doing. Nice, that she wants an exemption from throwing a party yet she is so quick to question another person right to peace and quite. Heaven forbid that this neighbor may be working the next day, not sleeping in and collecting free gov’t assistance.
But, I wonder if Al Jabbar, who received the endorsement of Sheriff Hutchens, is okay with our Anaheim police officers being called “Pigs”?
Then is Anaheim city candidate Dr.Jose F Moreno seriously ok with sending his FB followers, including some young minds, to a person who writes, “Fu_cking Police” or today calls the our Anaheim police “pigs”?
Did you see on FB how Assemblywoman Quirk Silva and Mayoral candidate Lorri Galloway honored Rojas? How nice they honor someone that hates our Anaheim police.
Dr.Jose f Moreno sends her a greeting saying “Felix Dia Amiga Yesenia!”
Yesenia seems to want her friends to call the Anaheim Chief of Police and get some answers and claims she is innocent.
Yes, everybody is innocent, nobody is guilty. And even if she was innocent, how nice is that she is responsible enough to pay her own bond.
You should contact those running for office and ask them why they support and condone Rojas’ actions.
While I respect Yesenia’s right to free speech, she and the others who harassed the police in the discharge of their duties set a terrible example for the children of their neighborhood, who grow up absorbing the lesson that it is proper and normal for adults to harangue and yell at the police for arresting criminals. Such behavior teaches those kids that the police are the bad guys and gang members are victims who deserve sympathy and esteem.
Whatever her intentions, Rojas, Acevedo and the rest contribute to perpetuating the social pathologies that are the real oppressors of the people living in neighborhoods like Anna Drive.
How long has Yesenia Rojas lived in the US? I ask because every time I see her speak at council meetings, she insists on speaking Spanish, even though she knows how to speak English. Would any of us immigrate to Mexico or Italy or China, insist of conversing in English and expecting everyone to accommodate our decision NOT to use the language of our adopted country?
I spoke to her in Spanish and English. Our interview was in English. Your point? Do go to other countries. They aren’t so monolingual
In case you didn’t know the USA has no official language.
You are correct Gabriel about the monolingual part. But as much freedom as we have here(United states) to speak any language and even freely question someone else’s commitment to become a part of America, let’s not overlook the fact that Yesenia seems to prefer gang members over police officers. Should a community leader who has been recognized and honored by some elected officials, really call the police those names, protect and harbor criminals and gang members by wanting answers when the police are arresting bad elements in their community and saying the police officers harass her community when they are arresting gang members with drugs and guns? Do you really support that? Why don’t you at least eat some of the BS you are feeding everyone else with regard to Yesenia? One from the hippy writing community should move unannounced and undercover in the Anna drive neighborhood and see for yourself who is menacing, who is threatening, and who is being targeted. In fact, play the homie part, oversized khakies, white shirt, etc, etc. I’m thinking your too scared and know undercover you’ll be hit, questioned and even interrogated up more from gang members, who probably are close friends with Yesenia then the police.
Straw man. A gang injunction arrest can be for something as simple as just physically being in the neighborhood. It can appear that the police simply arrested the young man for no reason whatsoever, especially when they are silent with a community wanting answers. If that climate seems unreasonable to you, don’t forget that this is the place where APD tried to buy people’s cell phone footage after the Diaz killing and residents (men, women and children) were in the line of fire of less than lethal projectiles afterward–one that struck Yesenia bruising her. The K9 bit her son’s arm, too. And yet her approach was to try and invite a bilingual officer to a community forum on October 10. APD informed her of an arrest warrant issued three weeks after the night in question instead. As for you challenge, unlike other journos that cover Anaheim, I’m from here and I grew up around gangs and got hit up by them so instead of hitting me up, you could try something like posting your name to your comments.
“As for you challenge, unlike other journos that cover Anaheim, I’m from here and I grew up around gangs and got hit up by them so instead of hitting me up, you could try something like posting your name to your comments.”
Skadoosh. Well done, GSR.
Skadoosh. To such a lame response.
If you really grew on in any hood anywhere, you would know that you just can’t move in and expect not to be hit up’d now and then by gangsters. Gabriel you REALLY believe police officers are gangsters. Next time you have a problem and need a cop, I hope you call a gangster instead.
SKADOOOOSH
“Next time you have a problem and need a cop, I hope you call a gangster instead.”
Old, tired, and used.
If you want the #skadoosh, be original.
“anon” did get the answer he expected so now he resorts to putting words in my mouth. Cool, bro! (or whoever you are!)
Okay. I didn’t mention a gang injunction or bring up any of the lame information you brought out but just articulate why in the above Facebook message you wrote ” everybody should be pissed? Please explain why? Maybe I missed something but what seems like is the issue, Yesenia tried to look like a hero in front of her people and foolish think that the police were going to let her control a situation she has no authority nor unbiased position in (she thinks the police are gangs and she supports criminal gangsters) . So she wants questions and really naively thinks the police should stop whet they are doing because she wants a Q and A press conference with people who are just trying to create, provoke a situation where the cops looks like the bad guys. Everybody, knows their agenda, cry, whine and complaine enough to get a piece of the American dream thru a lawsuit.
But anyways, please answer my question with a simple explanation why should everybody be pissed other than you tell them to be pissed. Of course, you believe people are smart enough to get upset for something with facts not just because someone says we should be pissed
I won’t dignify your questioning when you willfully situate Rojas within a false Manichean framework.
Read this statement from someone that says that they have a video of the night and knows of this so called yesenia activist. From the OC weekly comment section. They want to send it somewhere, someone. It’s seems it shows a twoface in action.
You can really read into this person’s words. She or he knows some unique information. Someone called , She’satwofaced wrote
“How did her party get “crashed”?
She “crashed” it herself. Her party was NOT in the alley.
That lady has a big mouth. She use to intimidate some of her neighbours saying that She worked for the APD and that she could send anyone to jail by making one phone call.
I find all this hilarious because she makes meetings (gatherings) with the “community” and APD so that they can make “peace” but at the same time she is pushing her ”community” to be aggressive with the offers.
It’S Yesenia Rojas who starts All the drama evey time we have the police in Anna Dr.
The APD should of taken her to jail that same day (Sept. 6)
Why Didn’t they take her?
she is always getting in problems that don’t belong to her.
Yesenia Rojas is just too hungry for attention.
I have videos from Sept. 6, 2014 too. Where can i send them?”
Gabriel, since you are big on rumors that insinuate corruption(police wanted to buy camera phones), there is this person that says they have video of that evening but more interesting she/he says Yesenia is twofaced, threatening people with the power to have them put in jail by one call. Then this person questions why she tries to bring the police and the her neighbors together while she talks smack on the police.(See facebook comments to prove that point)
Nice person you have there, a hero in your eyes. She doesn’t respect our government authority yet we all know everybody has options. There are other countries she can move to if she doesn’t at least respect our rules, conduct and laws.
You think Yesenia should have the power to raise up her hands ferguson style and have all the cops bow before her and sing her praise. Yeah, you can blindly do that on your own obvious crush with her but don’t even think that she talks or represent the majority of Latinos in Anaheim.
I can clearly see the wolf in sheep clothing but your free to choose your gangster loving hero.
Btw What does the buying of a phone prove?
That’s what a officer said or someone heard someone else say or did they interpret that.
Skafoolish!
“Journo”? You’re a left-wing activist who writes for an alternative weekly. You’re more a participant than a reporter.
Don’t quote my stuff then, especially when I ask police for information surrounding the nature of the warrant or for arrest information of individuals that night.
Writing something is old, tired and used by using “old , tired , and used is in itself old, tired and used. You are asking to be original and can’t see your own hypocrisy with your words.
If you want to be # skafoolish-looking, make a fool’s comment.
As I read this post, I am disgusted and reminded about the layer and connection all of these horrible people have to Tait and how connected he is to them. Wow, is this what we want/need for Anaheim’s future? NO!
Oh, I don’t think I mentioned: Yesenia is a Lorri supporter.
Big news on this front, Yesenia has raised a whopping $165. for her defense fund.
With that kind of cash on hand she must be using Diamond as her lawyer!